We. Want. Attention.
These thoughts are fresh in my mind and I need to write them down before they evaporate.
Very recently I've been thinking about how social media has affected us as a whole, and myself personally.
We post things that we hope people will notice. We live for how many "likes" that over-share of a status we posted will get, or how many people will Retweet that witty, completely original post about Jennifer Lawrence's tumble at the Oscars, or your super funny joke about the blackout at the Superbowl. Surely, no one else's post was as original as yours.
There are even pages entirely dedicated to do nothing but post pictures for no apparent reason with the caption, "How many likes for this poor woman suffering from menstrual cramps? 1 Like = 1 Prayer."
We want people to like us. To notice us. We. Want. Attention.
That's all social media is, really. Your Facebook timeline is one giant plea to your friends to notice you. You don't change your profile picture simply because YOU like that picture that your friend took of you taking shots of Jameson on St. Patrick's Day while you were wearing your comically large green top hat and green beads. You didn't take pictures of yourself wearing that cute new top that you just bought at The Gap with your hair all did and your makeup done perfectly with totally "natural" lighting and #nofilter for YOUR own enjoyment. No. You didn't. You did it to see how many people will comment and say, "Oh my gosh you look SO pretty!" and rack up at least 10 likes on it; anything less makes you feel like nobody likes you. Like nobody cares, or notices you.
This is where I really started feeling like a selfish asshole.
I do it. You do it. The only person who probably DOESN'T do it is your internet-illiterate dad who still can't figure out how to enable people to post on his timeline, let alone knows what a timeline is.
As a disclaimer, I would like to say that the following rant is going to sound like a self-promoting, gloating, bragging, bitchy, self-righteous ego-trip, and maybe it is, but I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. So. Read on if you will.
I have a YouTube channel that I post videos to pretty regularly. Most of them are of me singing or me and my friends singing, or some weirdo music videos that my friends and I got together to make because we had a concept running through our heads all day (See: "Bulletproof" and "Bad Romance"). Last year, I had a different YouTube channel that I accidentally deleted because I am an idiot and I do not know how the internet works. When YouTube and Google joined forces, it fucked my shit up. I deleted my old page, thinking I was deleting a different e-mail account. That YouTube channel had close to 100 videos, some of them racking up somewhere around 16,000 views. Granted the video with that many views was my friends and me spoofing America's Next Top Model, very poorly. I don't even know why people wanted to watch it. But they did.
Anyway. My point is, I had over 100 subscribers, and the videos that I DID care about had close to 1,000 views, and that made me happy. Now, my new channel has a mere 12 subscribers, and the most viewed video is at 250 something. 250, and that isn't enough for my ego. Why is that? Because amazing people like Jenna Marbles who make a living by being naturally hilarious get a million views a day? Because I have other friends who have more subscribers to their channels? Because when I look at those small numbers, it makes me feel like nobody gives a shit, or even worse, that they DID watch the video and they didn't LIKE it? Do I suck? Am I really as good as I think I am?
And the spiral continues.
Why do we put ourselves through this torture? Why do I continuously, obsessively check all my social media pages for new activity, new likes, new subscriptions, new retweets? Lord knows after I send this puppy out into the blogosphere, I'm going to check it every 5 minutes to see how many of you have read it, and consequently feel the inevitable shame and self-loathing because I will be able to count that number on my fingers.
And another thing:
I was discussing the aforementioned topic with my boyfriend, and he said something that really made me think, and then subsequently hate humanity with all of my black, spiteful soul: "It has to be stupid to get people to watch."
Stupid shit gets more views. We want a quick fix to make us crack a smile, or bust a gut, in under 30 seconds: a monkey picking its own butthole and falling over after sniffing his finger. KITTENS. Good God, kittens.
Maybe I should turn into a kitten and ... no.
So, I guess my whole point is that I am a selfish, disappointed, sad, sad little person. I hate that I want to see those numbers go up, those stats rise, the number of likes on my Facebook fan page increase (yes, I have one of those, too...).
I feel like 10 year old me would be really, really disappointed in 25 year old me. 10 year old me would tell current-me to get off of Facebook and go and play Amazon Trail. Or maybe go outside and shoot some hoops. Or skateboard. Or build a tree fort in the woods that have since been forbidden to trespassers....
Some days, all I want to do is throw away my smart phone, turn off my MacBook, tune up my bike, take a ride around the block, jump on my trampoline, take the dog for a walk, even just sit outside and read a book. So why can't I? Why can't I turn off, unplug, and shut down?
Because I am addicted.
God, don't you remember when the internet was new? When everyone was using AOL on their dial-up connections and singing along with the weird scratchy sounds it made as you logged on? And you had to ask your parents to go online because they might miss a phone call while you were using the internet?
I want it. I want it all back. I'm sorry, 10 year old me. I'm so sorry that we didn't skip college and become Britney Spears and meet Carson Daly. I'm sorry that we didn't write a horror novel involving all of our friends getting killed off, except us, because we're awesome. I wish that we still played in the snow, and climbed trees, and rode our bikes, and used sidewalk chalk. I wish that the Pisca Chicks had stuck together and become as famous as we know we could have been. (Pisca Chicks was a play off of PSC, which obviously stood for Pretty Sexy Chicks...Chicks.) I'm sorry that we don't make believe, anymore. I'm sorry that someone beat us to being Mrs. Howie Dorough, or Mrs. Leonardo DiCaprio. The only thing that I have to say for myself is...internet. Machines. Life. Growing up. Money. Oh, Lord, money.
Don't grow up, 10 year old me. It's a trap.
Very recently I've been thinking about how social media has affected us as a whole, and myself personally.
We post things that we hope people will notice. We live for how many "likes" that over-share of a status we posted will get, or how many people will Retweet that witty, completely original post about Jennifer Lawrence's tumble at the Oscars, or your super funny joke about the blackout at the Superbowl. Surely, no one else's post was as original as yours.
There are even pages entirely dedicated to do nothing but post pictures for no apparent reason with the caption, "How many likes for this poor woman suffering from menstrual cramps? 1 Like = 1 Prayer."
Come on, people.
We want people to like us. To notice us. We. Want. Attention.
That's all social media is, really. Your Facebook timeline is one giant plea to your friends to notice you. You don't change your profile picture simply because YOU like that picture that your friend took of you taking shots of Jameson on St. Patrick's Day while you were wearing your comically large green top hat and green beads. You didn't take pictures of yourself wearing that cute new top that you just bought at The Gap with your hair all did and your makeup done perfectly with totally "natural" lighting and #nofilter for YOUR own enjoyment. No. You didn't. You did it to see how many people will comment and say, "Oh my gosh you look SO pretty!" and rack up at least 10 likes on it; anything less makes you feel like nobody likes you. Like nobody cares, or notices you.
This is where I really started feeling like a selfish asshole.
I do it. You do it. The only person who probably DOESN'T do it is your internet-illiterate dad who still can't figure out how to enable people to post on his timeline, let alone knows what a timeline is.
As a disclaimer, I would like to say that the following rant is going to sound like a self-promoting, gloating, bragging, bitchy, self-righteous ego-trip, and maybe it is, but I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. So. Read on if you will.
I have a YouTube channel that I post videos to pretty regularly. Most of them are of me singing or me and my friends singing, or some weirdo music videos that my friends and I got together to make because we had a concept running through our heads all day (See: "Bulletproof" and "Bad Romance"). Last year, I had a different YouTube channel that I accidentally deleted because I am an idiot and I do not know how the internet works. When YouTube and Google joined forces, it fucked my shit up. I deleted my old page, thinking I was deleting a different e-mail account. That YouTube channel had close to 100 videos, some of them racking up somewhere around 16,000 views. Granted the video with that many views was my friends and me spoofing America's Next Top Model, very poorly. I don't even know why people wanted to watch it. But they did.
Anyway. My point is, I had over 100 subscribers, and the videos that I DID care about had close to 1,000 views, and that made me happy. Now, my new channel has a mere 12 subscribers, and the most viewed video is at 250 something. 250, and that isn't enough for my ego. Why is that? Because amazing people like Jenna Marbles who make a living by being naturally hilarious get a million views a day? Because I have other friends who have more subscribers to their channels? Because when I look at those small numbers, it makes me feel like nobody gives a shit, or even worse, that they DID watch the video and they didn't LIKE it? Do I suck? Am I really as good as I think I am?
And the spiral continues.
Why do we put ourselves through this torture? Why do I continuously, obsessively check all my social media pages for new activity, new likes, new subscriptions, new retweets? Lord knows after I send this puppy out into the blogosphere, I'm going to check it every 5 minutes to see how many of you have read it, and consequently feel the inevitable shame and self-loathing because I will be able to count that number on my fingers.
And another thing:
I was discussing the aforementioned topic with my boyfriend, and he said something that really made me think, and then subsequently hate humanity with all of my black, spiteful soul: "It has to be stupid to get people to watch."
Stupid shit gets more views. We want a quick fix to make us crack a smile, or bust a gut, in under 30 seconds: a monkey picking its own butthole and falling over after sniffing his finger. KITTENS. Good God, kittens.
Maybe I should turn into a kitten and ... no.
So, I guess my whole point is that I am a selfish, disappointed, sad, sad little person. I hate that I want to see those numbers go up, those stats rise, the number of likes on my Facebook fan page increase (yes, I have one of those, too...).
I feel like 10 year old me would be really, really disappointed in 25 year old me. 10 year old me would tell current-me to get off of Facebook and go and play Amazon Trail. Or maybe go outside and shoot some hoops. Or skateboard. Or build a tree fort in the woods that have since been forbidden to trespassers....
Some days, all I want to do is throw away my smart phone, turn off my MacBook, tune up my bike, take a ride around the block, jump on my trampoline, take the dog for a walk, even just sit outside and read a book. So why can't I? Why can't I turn off, unplug, and shut down?
Because I am addicted.
God, don't you remember when the internet was new? When everyone was using AOL on their dial-up connections and singing along with the weird scratchy sounds it made as you logged on? And you had to ask your parents to go online because they might miss a phone call while you were using the internet?
I want it. I want it all back. I'm sorry, 10 year old me. I'm so sorry that we didn't skip college and become Britney Spears and meet Carson Daly. I'm sorry that we didn't write a horror novel involving all of our friends getting killed off, except us, because we're awesome. I wish that we still played in the snow, and climbed trees, and rode our bikes, and used sidewalk chalk. I wish that the Pisca Chicks had stuck together and become as famous as we know we could have been. (Pisca Chicks was a play off of PSC, which obviously stood for Pretty Sexy Chicks...Chicks.) I'm sorry that we don't make believe, anymore. I'm sorry that someone beat us to being Mrs. Howie Dorough, or Mrs. Leonardo DiCaprio. The only thing that I have to say for myself is...internet. Machines. Life. Growing up. Money. Oh, Lord, money.
Don't grow up, 10 year old me. It's a trap.
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| 12 year old me with kitten Elmo, may Kitten God have mercy on his kitten soul. |
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